Playing Movie Critic

I finally got around to seeing No Country for Old Men, the most recent Coen Brothers movie. It's been praised to high heavens, and it is a really good movie, but it is hard movie to love. Which is odd, since I absolutely love the Coen Brothers and find their movies, if anything, too lovable. But they made a movie that can be parsed and analyzed until kingdom come, which, let's face it, is entirely up my alley. If anything, I like to over analyze my movies, TV, and music.

The Coens are the greatest thing to ever come out of Texas (Matt Acosta is a close second). And looking at their career, it's pretty damn amazing. They've won at Sundance (Blood Simple), Cannes (Barton Fink), and the Oscars (Fargo). And just about everything in between. they've made two undeniable cult classics (Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou?) and what I personally believe is the funniest movie ever made (Raising Arizona). Heck, and that's not even mentioning Miller's Crossing.

So they are finally getting their due as perhaps the greatest directors on the planet. Most people are lucky to make one great movie. Hell, look at Coppola, he made The Godfather and the rest of his career is pretty darn mediocre. It's like he had this one great thing and once he was done, that was pretty much it. OK, Scorcese is still cranking out the movies, but how much of his rep is tied to just always getting the best actors in the world to work for him? Who can't make Robert DiNiro look good? The Coens greatest movie might still be their first, Blood Simple, and the big star in that is Dan Hedeya who is best known for being the dad in Clueless. No Country's big star is Tommy Lee Jones, but the guy who dominates the screen is Javier Bardem, and you've never heard of him.

Is it their best movie? I don't think so. It would be most people's best, but it runs against some stiff competition here. But I'd like to see it when the Oscar anyway, just for lifetime achievement. Because no one makes better movies than the Coens.